


Everything Started with a Kiss

by Percilout



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Translation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25858969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Percilout/pseuds/Percilout
Summary: It felt like a thousand times that Superman has heard that the Dark Knight cannot enter into a relationship and even has to keep his allies at a safe distance. None of them had ever believed that this intention could start to waver.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Kudos: 26





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Alles begann mit einem Kuss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4992715) by [SkyeGraham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyeGraham/pseuds/SkyeGraham). 



> This is a translation of a finished fic so you can expect updates quite regularly. Hope you enjoy! :)

His sight constantly rested on the shoulders of the self-proclaimed Dark Knight of Gotham - Batman. He only turned it away when the man behind the masked looked at him directly. Disapproval was written on his face each time. Did Batman ever smile? Was he even able to? He had seen that Bruce Wayne could do it. Even in the cloak of the Batman he managed to warp his lips into a smile. He just did so far too rarely and never out of joy. “You are staring at me mindlessly again, Clark.”

His breath was expelled in white clouds as he asked for forgiveness. Nothing ever escaped the Batman. “I just thought about what it would be like if…”

He paused as his ally pressed his lips together tightly. Whatever he was going to say, it would not have pleased Gotham’s protector. Silence seemed to be the better alternative to the future argument with his opposite. “Never mind, forget it.”

Not a good moment to mention delicate subjects. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stop. Wouldn’t be able to come back to reality.”

Normal life did not exist for them. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t forget. With the tip of his finger he traced his lips, which had been touched for the first time by a man years ago. “Do you regret it?”

Batman looked down onto his city without moving his face or showing any kind of reaction. He was nearly certain that the Dark Knight wouldn’t answer as he lifted his gaze and regarded him directly. He knew the sharpness in it as well as he knew himself. Still, he floated down until he stood on one of the rooftops with both of his legs. Proximity was dangerous but at least for this night he needed a fraction of what Batman could, would, had to give him.

“Sometimes. You lose your focus. You become weak.” Words that hurt. He belonged to the strongest beings in the universe and a human of all things was doubting his strength. Not just anyone of them but the one whose opinion he counted on. “You’ll never change, right? Only ever seeing the violence out there.”

“That’s a fact. You should know that best.” Of course, he could hear the screaming creatures from everywhere. When he listened to them, he nearly felt their misery on his own body. He concentrated more on the man in front of him whose heart beat calmly in his chest.

“When you kissed me back then, you said it would be the first and last time. Because you can’t let anyone close to you and I’d pose a risk you should never underestimate. Tell me what you meant by that.” He suspected that Batman would swing into the night, declare the conversation finished and leave him alone again.

As expected, the Dark Knight rose. His gaze swept across his city again. Seconds passed without either of them speaking. Batman’s sigh distracted him from listening to the heartbeat and he was reminded of that evening. Bruce Wayne’s blue eyes looked at him through the mask. Captivated him in time and place till the world came to a stop. Like that first time, Batman’s lips rested on his own, but he didn’t just leave without a word.

“You are fire and I can’t let myself burn.”


	2. II

If he was the fire, was Batman the water that extinguished it or the air which nourished it? Which consumed him so that he searched ever more for that one specific heartbeat. Was Batman right in the end? Did he forget his duties and lose sight of the important things?

“Clark? Clark!”

He blinked at the monitor in front of him before he raised his gaze. Lois Lane crossed her arms before her chest. “Oh, yes?” Embarrassed, he cleaned his glasses. Just not looking at her face because she could possibly look right through him. She didn’t have to know what was going through his mind. She kept tapping her nails on his desk. He could feel her displeasure. “Clark, you are absentminded. Did something happen?”

“Just the usual. What can I do for you?

He smiled, like he usually did, although he didn’t feel like it. Lois eyed him warily but let herself be distracted. Fortunately for him, there were more important things in this world than him. “You aren’t focused, Clark. Whatever is on your mind, it can’t influence your work.”

She was already the second person who confronted him with that. It didn’t hurt as much as with Batman but he did hold Lois Lane’s opinion in high regard. She got to know him at least as well as he did in the meantime. “I know. I’m trying, Lois.”

Her smile helped him for the moment to concentrate on one thing at a time. But he did observe that she didn’t appeal to him as much as she once did. He wasn’t able to say if that was good or bad. If he’d ever regret giving her less attention… he didn’t want to think about that for now.

Interpersonal relationships were foreign to him in a certain way. The more intimate they threatened to get, the more discomfort he felt each time anew. He was too strong to hold himself back every moment. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. Being alone seemed like the better alternative. His path inevitably led back to the manor in Gotham.

Bruce Wayne stared at the wall in front of him and regularly clenched his hand into a fist. His anger was close enough to grasp but he wouldn’t be the Dark Knight if he hadn’t learnt how to control himself.

As close as he let himself, he approached the huge windows. Loneliness was no stranger to either of them. He’d ask to be let in, to… no, he shouldn’t think of it.

“Clark.”

“Oh.” Caught, he cocked his head and looked into the angry face that he knew so well. He floated into the study, felt the carpet under his feet for the time it took him to blink, before he perceived the punch in his face. It didn’t hurt physically, pained him far more in his soul. Wordlessly, he held his cheek, as Bruce Wayne paced up and down before him, holding his wrist.

“Did you…”

“Shut up!”

Hurt.

“Bruce.”

“I told you to shut up.”

When Batman’s voice got dangerously quiet, you should do what he says. Bruce Wayne did not possess any hidden weapons in his armour. In front of him stood a completely normal man and, if he looked at him clearly, the usually so strong Bruce Wayne was scared.

“Br-”

Another punch was deftly caught with one hand. He loosely encased the wrist so nothing would break out of carelessness.

“Bruce.”

“One day, Clark, I’ll use the Kryptonite. And then you should beg a higher being for mercy because I won’t have any.”

Batman didn’t make any empty threats. Instead of being scared, as he should maybe be, he smiled at the idea. An invitation to fight for the man before him who, grinding his teeth, rushed onto him, or at least tried to do so. He attacked him in a way that pained the both of them on several levels. Bruce Wayne was his air that nourished his flames but also his water. This night, the both of them would burn high.


	3. III

He would never have dreamt of lying in bed with Bruce Wayne, never mind sleeping with him. He could lift his gaze from neither the scar-riddled body nor the face of the Dark Knight. Caught between pain and pleasure, he moved - didn’t let himself be guided or helped. With all his might, he pressed against him, captured him beneath himself.

“Bruce?”

“What?”

His eyes were kept closed for a moment before he slowly opened them and they stared at each other for a few seconds. Bruce jerked back as he reached for his cheek, touched skin that barely anyone touched, was allowed to be touched.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured into the lips of the Dark Knight who tensed up as expected. Always ready to defend himself, and the thought brought a quirk onto his lips as he traced his scars.

“You know you wouldn’t have a chance against me if I applied myself to the task. You don’t have any Kryptonite here.”

Under lowered lids, Bruce kept him in sight, clenched his teeth as he took back the lead. Never submit, never give up control…

“I’m sorry, Bruce.”

Both arms wrapped around his body, he practically forced the Dark Knight to submit. He didn’t like it but he wanted even less to watch his closest companion bath in his own pain. Bruce clawed his fingers into his back and shoulders and hoarse moans resonated in his whole body.

“Bruce…”

“Shut up. Just shut up.”

For a moment, he asked himself if it should be like this between them. Decided that, in that instant, it was better than nothing. Later, he would give it more thought. Now, he only wanted to feel and lose himself in this dream in which only he and the man in his arms existed.

  
Like all dreams this one also ended and the hours of Bruce Wayne being obedient seem to have never existed. Each attempt to get closer, and be it only a short touch to the elbow, was stopped with a warning stare.

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t know what he was even apologising for. For tearing down the walls the Dark Knight had so carefully built up or the general lack of experience in making love? No new bruises were to be found on Bruce’s body but who knew what was happening inside? Even Superman could only guess.

“You should go now,” was the only thing his… ally (because they still weren’t more than that after this night) said before he rose from the bed. He did the same and searched for his clothes.

“Bruce…”

One touch, just a single one as a farewell, he wanted to steal. Encasing the biceps of the Dark Knight, he turned his face towards himself.

“I’m truly sorry,” he explained with regret over the look in Bruce’s eyes. He could just so breathe a kiss onto his lips, then he was already floating into the night. The cold air burnt in his eyes. He felt lonelier than ever before.


	4. IV

Of all the humans on this planet, he only wanted to see the one who didn’t appear. And he wouldn’t. The way to Metropolis was only found by someone whom he’d have expected to be the last one to show himself there.

“Is Batman sending you?”

He had the faint hope that Bruce would still make something out of him. That hope died as quick as a candle’s flame being blown out when the visitor took off his white mask and regarded him with his head cocked to the side.

“Interesting. Seems to really have gotten to you.”

“Cain…”

“Well then,” one of Bruce Wayne’s foundling tried to wave off, turning towards the city, “to answer your question: he wanted to hear my assessment of the situation.”

A smile showed on the face of the young man who he had known for years but had never really had any contact with.

“Though he didn’t mention what said situation is looking like in Metropolis. Which is pretty fine with me because it’s currently nerve-wrecking to be in the same room with him. Even Gotham doesn’t seem to be big enough.”

The glimmer of hope came up again. His heart got lighter and heavier at the same time, or at least it felt like it did. Preferably, he’d immediately make his way to Gotham to find out about Bruce’s state of mind himself. But he didn’t dare to, for the sake of the both of them. It would only end in catastrophe and he couldn’t bear to see that look another time.

“It doesn’t ever end, right? The fight for justice?”

“If this was about justice, I wouldn’t have anything to set against that.”

“But you think it’s something different that’s lying heavily on Batman’s heart.”

The white mask of the assassins on his face again, Cain peered at him through the thin slits. Grey eyes that resembled a stormy evening in Kansas narrowed in suspicion.

“I’ll tell him that Metropolis is under no danger. Unless a lovesick idiot in a Superman costume makes a fool of himself.”

“I’m not lovesick,” he quietly disagreed while the assassin stared out into the night. Like Batman… Shoulders tensed and he heard Cain clenching his teeth.

“Indeed, who would be.”

“Are you,” he began but the assassin interrupted him with a laugh that he knew too well. It was one of the fakest he’d ever heard.

“Love is something I’ve never been taught, Superman. If you ask me, it’s overrated.”

“So there is someone.”

“Since when are we talking about me here?”

“I’ve never seen you like the other people,” he confessed to his own surprise, “you were more of a ghost to me. Learning of such things makes it easier to view you as an ordinary human being.”

“It’s better if you don’t know me.”

“For you or for Batman?”

“For all of us,” Cain simply answered and readied himself to leave. At the edge of the roof he stopped once more to turn around.

“Do me a favour, Superman: Don’t let him get away. Never. No matter what he does.”

“I thought that’s your task?”

The assassin chuckled behind the mask before he turned his gaze towards the city.

“There’s no relying on my loyalty when it comes to that.”

He wanted to ask for a reason but Cain was gone as quickly as he had arrived. Like a shadow into the night, as silent as…

“Batman.”

In his dreams, the Dark Knight haunted him. Reigned over each thought until he was sure that he was slowly turning insane. His path led him again and again to the city limits of Gotham. From there, he watched Bruce Wayne and the new Robin he had found after Dick Grayson.

As expected, his visits did not stay undetected. The Dark Knight himself caught him in the act.

“Forgive me.”

But there was nothing to forgive. Not this night and neither the following ones, but it was up to him to always ask for forgiveness.

“That’s just like you, Clark.”

“You too, don’t you think?”

There it was: one of the rare smiles of Batman. Beneath the mask, he could see Bruce Wayne’s face, but he avoided looking him in the eyes. The twitching in his cheek betrayed him. Batman was nowhere near as relaxed as he acted.

“Quick-wittedness from you of all people.”

“The only thing I have left. I lost my closest ally.”

“You left him.”

“After he,” he searched for the right words as Bruce’s hit him right in the heart, “you pushed me away.”

“I need to take care of Robin.”

It was just like Batman to change the subject… like the way he melted into the shadows.

“Your closest ally, Superman, does not want to see you in his city anymore.”

“Will it always be that way?”

“You know the answer.”

“Too bad. Goodbye.”

He had nearly done Bruce way worse. Had breathed a kiss onto his lips before he left with a weak smile. Farewells like this one, though, almost weighed heavier on his shoulders than the world did.

“You still don’t understand, Clark,” he heard from far away, not seeing anyone as he turned towards the voice. One thing he had to reply, even if only for himself.

“To understand you is a trial.”


End file.
